The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has raised its forecast for the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil for this year to $52, up from $51 in last month’s forecast. The forecast for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was raised from an average of $49 to $50.57, a differential of about $3.50 a barrel between WTI and Brent. In Wednesday trading, the differential is nearly $5.50 a barrel.

The agency sees U.S. crude oil production coming in at 9.2 million barrels a day and rising to an all-time record of 9.9 million in 2018. Production rose from 9.09 million barrels a day in August to 9.34 million in September and is expected to close the year at 9.69 million barrels.

Gasoline prices reached a two-year high of $2.69 a gallon in September but had dipped back to $2.57 by October 2. The EIA forecasts U.S. gasoline will average $2.49 a gallon in October and drop to an average of $2.33 a gallon by December…